In the Terminal Maneuvering Area (TMA), the increased accuracy of the prediction of descending trajectories leads to an improved efficiency of the arrival management procedures. However, the prediction errors reduce the capability of exploiting the resources to the maximum because the knowledge of the future evolution of the traffic with time lacks precision.
These prediction errors depend strongly on the architecture of the Trajectory Predictor (TP) used and its limitations describing aircraft trajectory. Conventional TPs are limited in the way that they can describe the intended trajectory and, therefore, there are intrinsic prediction errors that are directly related to such limitations.
The typical approach known in the state of the art is to formulate a set of assumptions which describe how the aircraft are operated during their approach to the destination. These assumptions normally take into consideration the aircraft limitations (i.e. flight envelope, environmental envelope, etc.) and the airspace constraints (i.e. standard procedures altitude and airspeed restrictions, etc.), and result in a static aircraft intent description which provides the same predictions for all aircraft of the same model under identical weather conditions starting at the same initial conditions.
The predictions errors are accepted as the limitations of the considered TP which determines the capability of the Arrival Manager (AM).